Generally speaking, live albums and metal don’t mix well. (The exceptions—Live Undead, No Sleep ‘Til Hammersmith, Live After Death, et cetera—prove the rule. Unleashed in the East is at least partially a studio album.) I can think of two reasons why this is the case:

-The best live rock albums usually come from bands that improvise and interpret onstage—think Allman Bros. Most metal songs are rigidly structured, so there’s no element of surprise on live albums.

-Metal is heavily, heavily contingent upon instrumental tone. The more modern-sounding or underground a metal band is, the less likely they are to have the resources necessary to capture a flattering live recording.

Burning World Records, which runs Holland’s annual Roadburn festival, recently posted a number of live Roadburn sets to their Bandcamp site. Each set is available for pay-what-you-like download, and most buck the crappy-live-album trend.

Roadburn caters mostly to druggy doom and black metal; the former runs the risk of sacrificing its requisite huge tones, while the latter is hard to execute live in the first place. Surprisingly, these high-end recordings represent both styles warmly. Unlike most metal bands, the British psych-doom band Bong really do jam, and their set breathes like few live metal recordings do. Wolves in the Throne Room, who can feel brittle even in person, hit hard here. (Perhaps they should consider bringing a bassist on tour next time, if they ever tour again.) YOB, Bongripper, and Wino sound simply enormous; turn down the lights, crank up the volume, and pretend you were there.

All eight sets are streaming below. Most are available for sale in physical form on BW’s Bandcamp site as well.

Druggy doom and black metal would be how I would describe the Roadburn aesthetic. Or just call it “stoner,” I guess, though it’s not like people don’t get stoned to every subgenre of metal. The parking lot of the recent Cannibal Corpse show I attended was pretty fragrant.

Whatever happened to Bongzilla, anyway? I think they were the first “druggy doom” band I ever saw, opening for Unsane on their _Occupational Hazard_ tour. They were filling in last minute for Today Is the Day, who had cancelled at the last minute after Steve Austin lost and/or fired his umpteenth rhythm section. At first I thought they were a joke, but a few songs in and I was entranced by their singleminded Sabbathy dirge.

Off topic, I’ve always wanted to know what the hell is up with Today Is the Day’s revolving-door rhythm section. I haven’t done the math, but it seems like Austin has had more bandmates over the years than the Melvins have had bass players, and that’s saying something. The guys from Mastodon never seem to mention their time in TITD, which leads me to believe that particular split might have been less than amicable. There have to be some interesting stories to tell about Austin, who seems like the genuine article (in the best and worst possible ways).

Speaking of TITD, hope to make the drive to see them when they’re on tour in the spring. Steve Austin never disappoints live, and _Pain Is a Warning_ was his best record since _In the Eyes of God_. So many good tours this spring, more than I have the time or money to attend.

TITD currently has the first lasting rhythm section they’ve had since the Supernova/Willpower lineup—Curran and Ryan from Wetnurse have been in the band since 2010. Awesome musicians, awesome dudes. Steve is doing another record with them; it’ll probably come out later this year or early next year.